Sardinia In Ancient Times, by Edmund Bouchier

Sardinia is one of those quirky places that exist around the world that have not been truly under their own indigenous rulership for a long time. This is not to say that the islanders themselves have not wanted to be free–a major theme of this book is the way that the islanders sought to enjoy freedom as much as possible, even if this was mostly in the interior of the country and mostly in times where the exterior authority was too weak to fully control the island and just maintained control over the coast and the coastal cities, some of which have remained pretty important since ancient times. Although Sardinia is certainly large enough and well-off enough in terms of its resources that it would be a successful, if small, island nation, it seems that no one in the last 3000 years or so has been content to let it be free, and during that time someone has always sought to rule it, almost always from outside, if with some local self-government. Why this has not attracted the commentary of more writers, especially those who profess to seek the freedom of the world’s peoples, is remarkable and strange to me.

This particular book is a bit less than 200 pages and is divided into eleven chapters as well as some other materials. After a short introduction, the author discusses the prehistoric age and the possibility of the people of Sardinia being mixed up as part of the Sea Peoples during the Middle Bronze Age (1) among other legendary history (2). After this, the author turns to the historical debut of Sardinia as being under Carthaginian dominance (3). After this the author talks about the natural blessing and resources of Sardinia (4) before turning to its history as a Roman republican territory (5). An entire chapter is spent talking about Carales (6) and other cities (8) on the island. A chapter is spent exploring the history of Sardinia under the early (7) and late Roman empire (9), where it was generally considered to be a backwards island. The book then ends with chapters on architecture and arts (10) and religion (11) as they are found on the island, after which there are bibliography and index sections.

While this book is definitely out of date in terms of the finds that it has missed, or the genetic and linguistic information about the island that can help inform us as to what was going on in the ages of prehistory, the general outlines of this book are pretty valid as far as it goes with the way that the island served as a colonial backwater of the Roman, Cathaginian, Vandal, and Byzantine empires and even to this day serves as a backwater within Italy itself. It is not necessarily a bad thing to be a peripheral region, out of the beaten path, but it is remarkable that with all of the history that is known about the island and the way its people sought to be free from exterior domination and control that this fact has been so little discussed with regards to the place of Sardinia in the list of areas that have yearned to be free but not found that freedom recognized or respected throughout history, something that is known and recognized in the place of Sicily, another Italian island whose desire to be free has been better recognized, at least.